Academy of Sciences

The house of the Estonian Academy of Sciences or the former Ungern-Sternberg house was built in the 1860s. The Ungern-Sternbergs are an old Baltic-German noble family, with branches belonging to the German, Finnish, Swedish and Russian nobilities. The most notorious member of the family was Otto von Ungern-Sternberg who was rumoured to act as a pirate in his estates in Hiiumaa. According to the stories, he had built a lighthouse to lure the ships to shore to rob them and kill the surviving sailors. The rumors are not true but however, he may have ordered to have the light of the Kõpu lighthouse to be extinguished on some stormy nights and probably he also charged a higher fee for saving the ships that had sailed to the shallows. His person was the inspiration for different books and even an opera by an Estonian composer Gustav Ernesaks that won the Stalin Prize back in 1950.

The Estonian Academy of Sciences was founded in 1938. It is an independent group of well-known scientists whose aim is to promote research and development, encourage international scientific cooperation, and spread knowledge to the public. It has over 70 full members and over 20 foreign members.